Author: TJ Edwards

Unbiased Law: Episode 2

Today is Episode Two of Unbiased Law, a robot drama set in 2111.  As humans are phased out of the system of law, robots replace them becoming purely black and white in their dealings with the public. Crime is down, and almost eliminated completely due to the accuracy rate of the droids. However, after one man is placed in found innocent after spending a few years in prison, the law system is thrown into question. If one robot can make these errors, how do they know more won’t… or already have?

If you’re just tuning in, Episode One is here feel free to catch up and then return to this Episode! Enjoy!

PS-Also I know it’s a bit late but I’ve posted my short story for this week here! You will most likely see this link again tomorrow!

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As I lay here in the puddle of water and oil, I watch the tail lights to my car disappear into the torrential downpour. Will anyone notice me? I see the light come on for my power cell. Normally we never see that, as droids we have our regular maintenance. The repair droids make sure we’re in tip top shape, and our power cells get replaced every time without a disconnect. It seems she hit mine. Ms. Del Mar, if that was her real name, when I wake up I’m going to…

A droid stands over me, staring closely at my face. What happened? Where am I? Why am I immobile? The droid realizes my visual interpreters are working and he stands up straight. “Hello Magnus, I’m the doctor at the police station. It seems you’re a detective and a former member of the Police Artificial Intelligence Detectives. Any idea how you ended up on our doorstep with a bullet hole in your face armor?” I pause a moment but nothing appears in my recent memory banks. It seems they’ve been wiped cleaner than a newly built robot. “No Sir. I have no memory, not even in my reserves.” The doctor looks closely at my face again and tinkers with something. Suddenly I can feel my legs and arms come online. He nods and spins whatever tool he is holding. “You should be good to move now, and try updating from our network, you should have some firmware upgrades.” I sit up and see if I can connect to the network. What’s this? A password? “Umm, doc, what’s the password?” He is already heading for the door by the time I ask, but he turns to me. “Your password? It’s written on your old ID badge in your wallet.”

I fumble with my wallet, and find the ID badge. I find the password and enter it into the prompt, connecting… Still connecting. Finally, I’m granted access. Now, where would this update be located? Maybe it’s… And before I know it my thought process is interrupted. “You Have Mail.” I really have got to change that, I think the doctor installed the most basic system possible. An email, from myself? Ten minutes ago? Let’s load this up.

“Magnus, If you’re reading this it means you’ve been shot in your memory core. I’d explain everything but it’s way easier to access your old self and install the backup. You’ll understand in a minute. Sincerely, Magnus.”

Well that was odd. I enter the link at the bottom of the email and it takes me to a file. Download? Of course! I wait a few moments as the file transfers. Wow, apparently I am about to remember a lot, four hundred and thirty seven zettabytes worth of memories. Installing. Rebooting.

When my visuals come back online, I leap to my feet. I’m not in my car, I’m not sure where I am or what’s been going on. After a brief survey of the scene, it appears I’m in the police station doctor’s shop. Well, it seems everything is going as well as it could. I guess I got my email, considering I’m back to my old self. I shake the reboot off and leave the room. As I open the door, a droid rushes to my side. “Sorry Magnus, but I can’t let you leave just yet… especially with no face plate. I reach up and touch where the plate should be. Oh, cords… got it. “You must be the doctor who patched me up?” The droid nods, and he responds with confusion in his voice. “You don’t remember me? I told you to update only moments ago!” I fix my tie and suit jacket. “I didn’t update, had a quality backup. I’m good as new, mentally at least.” The doctor nods. “Well at least that’s good news, but once we get your face plate back on the Commissioner wants to see you.”

Moments later I’ve got a shiny new face and all my memories, like nothing happened. Now… to find out who Veronica Del Mar is and put her in prison for murder and the theft of my car. I restored that car myself. But first, I should probably see the Commissioner. As I walk into his office, I overhear part of his conversation. “Yes. Yes. I will get my best on it now Sir. Yes. Sorry. No. I do not know what will happen if the judge is found guilty. I know. Unbiased Sir. I will. Goodbye.” The Commissioner looks up to me. “M46-NU5, welcome back. I require your service.” I survey the room, wishing he had possibly dragged that out a bit longer. “You want me to investigate who shot me Sir?” The Commissioner shakes his head, and motions for me to close the door.

“Off the record mode, M46-NU5.” The Commissioner has never been in off the record mode, at least that I’ve seen. I stand still as a coat rack, awaiting what terrible news he has for me. Suddenly, he slams his hand on the desk leaving a solid dent behind. “Magnus, you have been working your own firm for a decade or so now, correct?” I am startled by the question, not where I was expecting him to go. “Yes Sir. A decade indeed.” The Commissioner stands and I detect his scanners surveying my entire frame. “Magnus, I need you to listen and listen closely. Droids are in trouble if we do not solve this promptly and efficiently. Have you heard of the man wrongly convicted and sent to prison by a robot judge?” I had heard of it, but not much. “I know little about it, but I’m guessing things aren’t going well?” The Commissioner shakes his head. “Let me bring you up to the current news.”

“A droid judge was proceeding over a case in which a man was caught at the scene of a crime, holding the murder weapon with the victim’s blood all over him. It seemed evident that the man had committed the crime. Upon further analysis, the man had scratch marks and the victim had his skin under her nails.” The Commissioner looks at me, as if he expects me to interrupt, then continues. “It was too easy. Too default crime. We all speculated it may have been staged to put a light on us. We put the man through the polygraph and he passed. He admitted he had done the crime.” I take my moment to interrupt. “So, it was by all definition a completely solved case.” The Commissioner nodded in agreement. “However, once he was convicted and placed into prison a man came forward stating he was the real murderer. We put him through the polygraph and he was telling the truth. He explained some details that were not released to the public. We realized then we had been tricked. The humans are trying to start a war against us.”

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End of Episode Two! I’d love to hear any feed back on today’s story and feel free to be brutally honest. Email me, or comment, either one is fine! I do know that today’s episode isn’t as much of a cliffhanger as the last, however I believe it is definitely a good point to end on. Our main character has died already, people are framing robots and the mystery woman is on the run. Will Magnus find out what we already know, or will the moments after he uploaded his back up be lost forever? Tune in for Episode 3 in two days! Thanks for reading!

Into The Looking Glass… (Part 2)

Hello again everyone, thank you for swinging by my blog. Last night I celebrated a moment of personal victory as my blog passed two hundred views. Thanks to everyone who has supported me thus far, I really appreciate it. It definitely motivates a person to keep going knowing that someone out there may actually be reading!

Today’s article is Part Two of Into The Looking Glass… (Click here for Part One), which is a look back at where I’ve come from as both a person and a writer. I’ve been through many trials in my day, however I will leave full disclosure for perhaps a professional autobiography if I manage to make it as a writer and worm my way into media somehow. For now, enjoy my path, picking up where I left off after elementary school.

So at the end of grade six, I had managed to get myself into quite a lot of trouble and made more enemies than friends. Even my parents wanted to trust me, but I had broken that trust. Luckily for me, my french teacher commended me on my passion for learning and excelling in her class. She asked me if I would join french immersion. She explained to me that I was fit for the task and being bilingual would get me jobs easier than someone who wasn’t. I saw it as an opportunity to get away from the majority of my old friends, and I would continue on with the few good friends I did have. I remember asking my mother if I could go into french immersion, she was shocked, but said it wasn’t up to her it was up to me. I said I wanted to, I just needed her signature. The next day I handed in my note and anxiously awaited Junior High.

However, before the end of that year one of the relatives I was closest to passed away. My grandfather on my mother’s side, sadly passing away on Christmas Day. It was a tragic moment for me, as I told him lots of stories and problems I had at school that I hadn’t spoken to my parents about. I knew things were changing that year, but I hadn’t anticipated losing my support. As we stood there, I could barely understand what was going on, but my young sister was crying because everyone else was. It wasn’t the best of my many Christmases, but it is by far the most memorable. The year got much longer as I found myself with fewer people to talk to about my problems. Everyone says you can talk to them, but you know how much of it is already a burden on you. You almost feel compelled to keep it in so as not to bother anyone else. However Junior high would be a fresh start, it would be better. I just knew it.

So as junior high began I had cut myself off from my friends who didn’t go into french immersion, not on purpose, but there were many new faces among the crowd. As we all began new cliques and I was seated at a table completely separate from my friends from elementary, I was forced into making new ones. Lucky for me, I can get along with just about anyone. As I met a guy who would easily become my best friend and two of his friends, our friends all managed to get along and soon the group had formed and solidified. These would be the friends I would carry straight up through and into high school. Definitely the best group of friends I had ever had, especially up to this point. One of the problems I was having though was I had no real values, no idea how to be a good friend and I was still being bullied around school. The bullying didn’t bother me, but it did toughen me up. Eventually, it grew from two on one bullying to more and eventually it would take four guys to successfully bully me around. I always thought to myself, these guys are so lame, and I pitied the fact that they felt they needed to do that. Whatever made them feel better about themselves, I guess they needed it more than me.

As junior high continued I loved french immersion, and decided I would continue it into high school as well. Despite being bullied, I had some incredible times and made some of the best friends I may ever have. I mean, those people you meet throughout life you may have a lasting affect on forever. A girl I liked, ended up dating one of my friends instead and through the connections she made there, is with another of my friends. Who would he be with now if I had never met her? Who knows? But at the end of the day things worked out. No matter what though, I learned how to be a friend, and forged my own values and personality from those around me. Every one of those people made an impression on me that makes me thankful I ever met them, even if we didn’t always get along.

That’s it for today’s entry, tomorrow will be Episode Two of Unbiased Law and this article will continue on every second day. Please feel free to leave your comments below or email me from the top right! Thanks for reading!

Unbiased Law: Episode 1

I mentioned before about wanting to do some more creative work, especially on this blog. I was having trouble filling the page every day but for me I need to. The consistency to update every day is normally where I break; if I make an excuse one day, then it gets easier day after day. So I have instead switched the focus of this blog. Yesterday you saw a more autobiographical entry, where as today I’ve decided to take you into an episodic piece of fiction. I decided that I would alternate between autobiographical entries and fiction. That will happen every day until one or the other finishes. I may keep the fictional series to ten episodes, but I suppose we will see when or if we get there!

Today’s piece is set one hundred years into the future, where police and courts have been replaced with robots. Black and white with no gray area; These robots govern consistently and cannot be bought out. Suddenly, one man is found innocent after he has been imprisoned and people begin to question why he was wrongly convicted. As the first “mistake” made by the robots is blown out of proportion, it seems people are losing faith in this form of the law. Robots are the only officials left after twenty years of consistent service, will people allow robots to govern other robots?

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The rain pours down over the city, as if an attempt to wash away the mistakes of an artificial intelligence. One judge, makes one mistake. That’s how this all began. As I peer out the front window of my office, I realize that this is going to change things. I’ve been operating a detective business almost all of my eleven years in operation. I lean on the window frame and I find myself staring at the metal of my hand. It was ten years ago that I was allowed to start my own business. I load the file associated with the date.

“For exemplary service, Police Artificial Intelligence Detective M46-NU5, has been granted the approval for his application to operate an agency dealing with individual problems.” Commissioner Alpha 6L3-N13 looked me up and down. “M46-NU5, will you continue to comply with regulatory and preventative maintenance diagnostics?”

I stare straight ahead and nod. “Yes Sir.”

The phone rings in the background and I pause the load. It is strange now after loading that file, how he sounds so machine like. I pick up the phone and look back to the window. “Artificial Intelligence Detective Agency, Magnus speaking.” The voice on the other end sounds as soggy as the scene outside my window. “Is this the robot detective?” That is an accurate description, however it doesn’t register as polite by my records. “I suppose that is what I am, who am I speaking with?” Through the sobs on the other end comes a sweet sound, like oil for my audio receivers. “Veronica. Veronica Del Mar.” I pause for a moment, saving that voice file to memory. “What seems to be the problem Ms. Del Mar?” The voice comes through the line again, but this time in hushed tones. “I’m at the corner of one twenty seventh and fifty third. Please pick me up, I’m in the phone booth.” The line goes dead before I can reply.

I get my umbrella out and head to my car. I hate nights like these, just don’t feel comfortable in the pouring rain. Makes my joints stiff. As I turn on the headlights I see a man scurry into a nearby house, it only seems strange because he was just standing in the rain. I ignore it and pull away, that phone booth is only a few blocks from my office.

In no time I see the booth standing amid the rain, a small sanctuary for a sweet voice. As I pull up, I see someone inside the booth but can’t make any details out, the rain is obscuring my view. I push open the car door and the person from inside the booth rushes out and sits in my passenger seat. She pulls her jacket back from her head and I see a most attractive female. She is asymmetrical and her beautiful blonde hair is styled neatly. Her make up is somehow unaffected by the rain, and accents her features perfectly. My voice crackles, likely from the moisture in the air, “So where to Ms. Del Mar?” She turns to me with a smile, but suddenly it turns to a look of rage. She pulls a gun from her purse and sticks it in my face. “The Police Station droid. Make it snappy.”

For the first time in many years, I am glad that I cannot feel fear. But if I were able to, I think it would be how I would feel now. Nevertheless I am concerned with what a gun that size would do to my memory banks. We drive down fifty third and the woman never takes her eyes off me. I can see a slight trembling in her trigger finger, my concern always growing for my memory. As we get close to the station I find an old wireless connection and connect. I login to my home computer and begin uploading a backup of my mind to it. The time estimate for the upload comes in at about four minutes. Stupid Windows Seventeen, I only have four hundred and thirty seven zettabytes of data to transfer. It’s just never fast when you need it to be. I begin to slow the car down and pull off to the side before getting to the station. Suddenly Ms. Del Mar knocks on my head with the gun. “I said to the Police Station droid, not near it.”

A notification appears in my view, apparently the estimate was wrong and it went faster than estimated. Once again I say, stupid Windows. I send a quick email to myself from my computer and schedule it to send in approximately ten minutes. Hopefully I’m still active, but judging from my surroundings, the chances are slim. I pull up to the front of the Police Station and Ms. Del Mar looks up at the building. “Thanks for the getaway car…” I turn to her, looking straight down the barrel of what seems to be a hand cannon. “You don’t have to do this.” She doesn’t even flinch. Her eyes stare me directly in the face. “This is for my father, sorry, it’s nothing personal.” The bullet tears through the protective armor and I begin to feel the power draining from my view. She opens the door and shoves me onto the side walk and into the rain. The last thing I see are my car’s tail lights disappearing into the night.

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End of Episode One! I’d love to hear any feed back on today’s story and feel free to be brutally honest. Email me, or comment, either one is fine! Also I got word my review is up thanks to the awesome folks over at TnT Gaming Voice! You can check out my review for Fallout: New Vegas (PS3) here but for today thanks for reading!

Into The Looking Glass… (Part 1)

This article is going to serve as an introduction to me. My name is Timothy John Edwards (in case you didn’t notice the web address for this blog). In the past few years I have undergone some extensive changes to my life such as relocating to Australia and even before that moving across Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Edmonton, Alberta. Let’s start with some back history shall we?

When I was younger I was fascinated with math and the problems it presented. I also was a very imaginative little boy, always on an adventure in my head, fighting dragons, riding dinosaurs and exploring the woods. This fuelled my love for video games at a very young age thanks to my parents who already owned a Colecovision, an Atari and a Commodore 64 before I came along. But after awhile it was getting harder to find new games for those and I became obsessed with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Watching the commercial where they are shooting the ducks in Duck Hunt blew my young mind! Eventually my parents caved and I got one and yes, it was the greatest thing I had ever experienced! This easily helped fuel the fires of desire for more gaming. Even though Sonic looked really cool on the Sega, I had already seen Super Mario Bros 3 in a commercial or TV program so I didn’t bother asking for a Sega.

Elementary school was awesome for me, I excelled quite easily and I loved learning! I was an extremely short sponge of a kid, but in grade four we began learning french. That same teacher actually took an interest in those of us who excelled in math and formed a small advanced math group. We in the group bonded over that and began pushing ourselves and each other. That year we learned enough math to get us into year nine or so in studies. Five grades ahead wasn’t a bad start! However the next year our teacher was very clearly just cashing her teaching check and none of the advanced group pursued advanced math any further. Our last teacher pointed us in the right direction, and this teacher barely taught us anything. This is when I strongly began my delinquency phase, the one pretty much every child has.

My best friend in grade three had been the most popular kid in school, but when he moved away I was left pushed to the outskirts of the popular crowd. I didn’t really care too much, but I still had many people I was used to hanging out with. Eventually they peer pressured me into stealing for them. I essentially had to pay my dues for being popular. This sucked for a few years as they pushed for bigger and better items. Candy bars turned into small jewelery, small toys got bigger. I managed to get in trouble with my parents often as I stole money from them as well. Eventually I began to realize these people weren’t really my friends at all. It was shortly after I stopped stealing for them that many people dropped me as a friend.

Then enter grade six, the year before most Canadian children move on to Junior High. I had given up stealing and began gaining many new friends who were instrumental in my development. After awhile though I found myself running in with the wrong crowd again. One day they eventually peer pressured me into fighting another kid at the school over nothing, and I agreed to it. Over the course of the day I thought about it and all these jerks who kept pushing me to do things I had no interest in doing. That day I went to the fight and stood there with everyone watching me. I had been pressured long enough, and without a word I turned my back on the other kid. Now I don’t know what possessed him to do it, but he tackled me over and pinned me to the ground. That was when I realized all those people who I thought were my friends were nothing of the sort, as they were cheering him on.

I don’t look at that moment as a moment of weakness in my eyes, I look at it as the turning point of my own development. I grew that day into the start of a person I wanted to become, not who others wanted me to be. That point has stuck with me even through to today. I don’t mention names because this is my story, some people will know who they are and where they fit into the story. For the readers who don’t know any of these people, you’re not losing out on any details.

Tomorrow’s article will actually be my first attempt at writing episodic fiction and I will stagger it with these kind of autobiographical pieces. For now thanks for reading and take care!

PS- I’ve decided to add a link to the next part of this article if you wish to skip the fiction! Ahead to Part Two->

Opinions: You Have Them, I Want Them

Alright, so I just wrote what I think is a lovely piece for my IGN blog and it got me thinking. I love creative writing. So today’s post here will be a number of things I would like to throw out an idea, and see if I should turn this blog in a different direction than it’s been going. Not that I don’t like this blog, however it gets harder and harder to come up with new stuff everyday. Where the game industry is abundant with creativity and ideas, I find it easier to write a journal entry because this blog is… well for a word… I have no idea what to actually make this blog.

My hope was that this blog would be the gateway to what I do on the internet and for companies. Almost like a portfolio, but a nice laidback portfolio that shows my hard work and devotion to writing. I would also like it to show my personality and where I came from, but in all honesty… how does one build such a thing?

As I continue to write this blog, I find it challenging to manage. However, the big idea I’d like to throw out is would anyone out there read say a fife hundred to one thousand word story piece a day? Almost like I do my short story writing, I would read the posts before and continue. I would have to try and make it almost like some kind of drama and leave off on a cliffhanger (since I don’t have commercials to sell the next post) just to keep you ladies and gents coming back!

Imagine a radio drama… with no radio… and potentially not much drama… are you picturing it? Good. I swear it sounds worse than it really would be! If anyone had any requests for a world or theme, I’d be willing to take it! For now I will think up some story ideas and perhaps post them in the coming days or just start on one! I was also considering picking up some freelance work this week. Either way, I would love to have more people commenting on my blog and sharing their ideas and opinions about not just my previous writing but my future writing as well! For now I leave you with these to think about! Also as a side note, learning to convert a story to a script is not as easy as it originally seemed. That one may actually not be posted this week. The short story is still going to be posted this Saturday, on my first day I wrote over two thousand words and three pages! I really like the circumstances and characters in the story! Anyway for now, take care and thanks for reading!

The Broken Path: My Genealogical Journey

For the longest time I could feel that my family lacked tradition and a sense of unity. Nothing was passed down through the years, no incredible stories, just nothing. After awhile you begin to wonder, where do I come from and what history does my family name have? Well, maybe not everyone. I most certainly have been hooked on it for the past while. It all began a few years ago when I got fed up with how disconnected my family was. I decided I wanted to get a signet ring and start a tradition. Unfortunately, signet ring engravings are quite expensive so I skimped on the ring and it wore down quite quickly. I decided I’ll return to it once I begin to start a family. But in the meantime, I would look into my own ancestry.

Looking up family histories gets easier year after year as more documents are converted to digital. Also some people online have already begun your family tree and you don’t even know it! Imagine my surprise when bridging gaps in my Mom’s family tree lead me to finding out all of the Slauenwhites as far back as the Schlagentweits in the sixteen hundreds! It’s been incredible seeing where I’ve come from; from Germany on my Mom’s side and England on my Dad’s side. However it’s nearly a thousand years of being in Canada before my family history is on another continent.

To help anyone just starting out, here is exactly what you need to do. Start with questioning your relatives and go as far back as you can. If you’re lucky your grandparents will remember their grandparents names, the trick is to get back at least one hundred years. The reason for you to get back that far is because after one hundred years, all the birth and death certificates and immigration notes become free for public view. After getting back as far as you can, begin searching their details. You will have to Google them and probably do a little Googling about where to actually find the information you need! Hell, even just Google is a good enough tool! As morbid as it sounds, looking up your ancestors obituaries and birth and marriage certificates traces a path through history that we can’t walk ourselves. It makes me think about the journey I’ve been taking going west across Canada and then eventually moving to Australia.

I think that this whole journey has been rather informative and interesting. In fact it’s been so interesting I’d be willing to help someone with their search if they’d like. Just feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns! Thanks for reading!

Character Development

If you keep up with both of my blogs, you will see a trend for today’s topic of choice. I’m talking about characters! They can make us laugh or cry, angry or happy and sometimes they do it only with words on a page. Also actors have been incredibly good in the past few years at developing characters on screen. I want to share with you my favourite moment of character development and why I believe it to be a good example. I would also like to mention a few of the methods I use when I grow a character and which “type” I prefer personally!

Now first off I want to talk about one movie in particular that blew everyone away in recent years. The acting, screen play and directing were phenomenal and one of the characters was played perfectly while another developed so masterfully it was only overshadowed by the other’s performance. In “The Dark Knight” we watched as Heath Ledger left us with the performance of a lifetime. Nearly unrecognisable, Ledger managed to capture the insanity and lunacy of the Joker while preserving the dark side of the film and I thank him for the performance. However, I believe had Ledger not died the lime light would point to Aaron Eckhart who took on the role of Harvey Dent and then Two-Face as his character progressed throughout the film.

Eckhart had my favourite route of character progression from champion to villain as he succumbed to the madness of the world around him. Calm, confident and charming, Eckhart portrayed Harvey Dent as the future for Gotham City and a shining example at that. The world surrounding Dent is one of corruption and bribery, one that begins to take its toll on the city’s knight in shining armor. We see Dent starting to lose his cool as he interrogates a man by flipping a coin to whether or not he will shoot the man. We know the coin is double sided, but it shows how increasingly frustrated he is becoming. Finally the Joker manages to set Dent off balance by forcing Batman to make a choice between Dent and Dent’s girlfriend who is also Batman’s love interest. As Dent loses his girlfriend and half his face to the Joker, his condition worsens and finally he lets the evil take over.

Assuming the role of Two-Face, Harvey Dent then begins enacting revenge on those who had a hand in his disfiguration and the death of his girlfriend. He chooses who to attack, but lets his now scarred coin decided whether they live or die. In many of the scenes I get the chills watching him flip the coin as he allows fate to decide for him. He holds true to it, not killing one of the female officers involved proving he is true to his word. I truly believe Eckhart should have been given way more credit than he received.

So that was one incredible transformation from recent memory, but not all developments are as epic or notable. For me in my short stories I do not plan how my characters develop. In short fiction I write a page at a time with an idea in mind. After each page, I reread what I have already written and see if I still wish to continue in that direction. Sometimes from beginning to end the characters I intended for a purpose switch allegiance and become something different, much like Harvey Dent. For me in longer fiction, I prefer much more subtle changes, so that eventually you haven’t realized they changed at all but eventually everything piles up.

I quite love the underdog characters, and the characters who switch sides unpredictably. These characters have the ability to flip a story in any direction. The underdog can lose a war, only to win it in the end, but these loveable characters are cheered for in many movies. Cinderella Man, Rudy, Terminator… (Ok not Terminator, but it was definitely getting too serious in here) are shining examples of the underdog character. The switching type character has been seen in many movies and television shows, one of the most famous is Darth Vader. Started off as a Jedi, turned to the dark side for a very long time and then in the end, returned to the side of the Jedi. Whatever the case these all have great character development (although Star Wars has many cheesy lines in the early days of Anakin) and prove to be among the most popular of character development choices.

It’s hard to break away from the clichés, and the types as you write. You will find most situations have been covered at one point or another. The challenge for modern writers is the same as it always has been, but it does get tougher with more writers adding their stories to the sea of creativity. However how many times has someone written about a boy wizard, until J.K. Rowling managed to meet with incredible success? I suppose what I am trying to say is if you are a writer out there, and it may have been completed a thousand times, develop your characters however you wish and write the stories you want to write. As a writer I don’t get down by a story being similar to mine, instead it empowers me. it should push you to get your stories out there more than ever before because it means that someone else liked your idea! So get out there and write!

Blog of Writing +1: The Expansion

So after updating earlier I realized my posts were coming through in the past! As I want to continually post every single day I realized there was a gap in my posts! It was all because my time zone was set to Alberta, Canada instead of New South Wales, Australia. But that being said, I knew I’d be reposting today which is why yesterday’s post was short. But all that aside, it’s story time!

Fallen Skies (Click Here to read it!) is the short story I worked on for the past seven days and managed to write just over ten pages. The story follows Damien, a newly wed visiting New York with his wife Alison. Even before they can touch down, demons begin pouring from the underworld and try to take the city. All that stands in the way of the demons is a secret chapter of the Knights Templar who manage to save Damien and take him in. He doesn’t find his wife and is told that he was one of a few survivors who made it to the Templar Bunker. As time passes, Damien is knighted by the Templars and taught to lead their knights into battle. As the last gang in the city push the Knights Templar from the streets, the war with the demons intensifies and Damien is thrust into training scouts. As the past begins to catch up with him, Damien finds himself trying to unite the gang and the Templars in hopes they can force the demon threat back once and for all.

The email link is up and running so if anyone out there would like to send me feedback feel free! The plan for this upcoming week is as follows:

IGN Blog Post per day
Blog Post here per day
Convert Story to Script
Write another short story

So be sure to check out my new story on the right side under Creative Endeavours and be sure to check in starting tomorrow as I’m going to try something new with the writing blog. Daily writing activity? Perhaps! Only time will tell!

Blog of Writing +1

You’ll notice today I have made a number of adjustments to the website! From sharing me on Facebook and Twitter, to checking to make sure I have posted every day, check the right hand side to see what I’ve added! If anyone comes here and has any suggestions or things they’d like to see added to the side bar let me know! If you’re kind enough to swing by, the least I can do is be accommodating.

Story Update: My short story should be posted tonight before I sleep, so some people may find it posted tomorrow. The story has some decent characters and dialogue, I just hope it holds up. I don’t really plan what I’m writing, I just sit down, reread the last bit and then blow through until I feel I can’t write any more or I’m satisfied with what I’ve written. The story will be added to my Creative Endeavours links on the right hand side. It will be entitled “Fallen Skies”. I really would love some feedback on it, so feel free to message me or I’ll get an email posted up on here somehow.

Anyway thanks to everyone who has been coming to this website for the past while, I really have some big plans for the future. Short stories per week, script writing and some other things as we get closer to Christmas! For now I need to run and finish a certain short story! I’ll post again in a little bit!

The Writer Within

I find myself writing a diary entry every night that is somewhere between three hundred to five hundred words. Strangely that comes easier than the posts I manage to write on this site, as I feel must be more professional. This is the gateway to my future career hopefully, although my twitter feed somehow comes up in the top results on Google. I find myself inspired by almost anything and everything and focusing on the task at hand can be very difficult. I pour my hear out in my writing whether it be an article type post for IGN or a short story based on some kind of post-apocalyptic world.

Where I am going with this is I have found it exceptionally hard to simply choose a freelance project that feels worth doing. All of them want masses of articles, from fifty to one hundred, and they would like them for anywhere from twenty cents to seventy five cents a piece. The hardest part is being able to let go of my personal passions and just write whatever they want me to write. Kind of makes me feel like a mercenary, good enough to help but the bad guys are the ones paying! There have been some articles that have seemed interesting but in freelance you put in your bid (essentially undercutting the competition) and then seeing if you get snatched up. Imagine an eBay for writers, where the bids keep going down, until eventually someone is almost paying to write the article for the company they won the bid on. It’s a harsh world, but I suppose you need to start somewhere.

Lucky for me my blog at IGN is getting more notice, more people are viewing it and random people who aren’t a friend of a friend. The more notice I receive the better it is. I once read an article that said many companies these days will actually Google a prospective employee, especially when it comes to jobs in the media or design and development. You must demonstrate consistent passion and knowledge of your particular field and sell yourself every single day. As a writer you are just as much your product as your story is. No one gets rich over night, not in this field. They work at it, slave at it and they perfect their craft. As hard as it has been and as mentally draining as it can be, I have been loving writing every day.

The book I mentioned in my last post, Elements of Style, is a general knowledge book I believe everyone should have. It’s a little over seventy pages and that is all it needs to be. Short, concise and straight to the point. The new book I’ve started on is a Scriptwriting book that probably should have learned from Elements of Style. If I remove much of the wordiness and meaningless sentences, I find that so far this Scriptwriting book has taught me nothing. Not even a review of topics I already knew. Just nothing. Which is fantastic, I give it another two chapters before I turn to Scriptwriting For Dummies. At least I figure that one should be dumbed down already!

My short story will be posted tomorrow regardless of it’s state of edit, and I will begin the actual plans for my projects next week. Also I will be submitting a guest review for a friend’s website on the video game Fallout: New Vegas by Bethesda in the next few hours and if it does end up being posted, I’ll toss out a link to it and you can decide if you’d like to share in my experiences of the barren wastelands of the Mojave.

Either way thanks for swinging by this little blog and I hope everyone out there has a great day!